Pressenza IPA

Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Saeb Erakat, said today, 25th August, that a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis was possible. “International law and United Nations resolutions clearly outline how to resolve this conflict. The Road Map and the Arab Peace Initiative provide a clear way forward”, said Erakat.

The official list published Saturday of winners in elections to the Revolutionary Council of the Palestinian Fatah movement included 67-year-old Dr. Uri Davis, a Jerusalem-born Jew. He was elected number 31 of 80 members. When his name was announced, members in the auditorium of the Bethlehem school where the conference was being held, applauded long and loud.

Peace proponent Cindy Sheehan calls all peace leaders to come sail with her aboard ‘SS Camp Casey’ anchored in Martha’s Vineyard for a shipboard peace summit from August 27 to 29. Cindy, who is sometimes referred to by the media as “the peace mom” lost her son Casey in the Iraq War when he was killed in action on April 4, 2004.

The popular Chilean actor Benjamín Vicuña, one of the Latin American Ambassadors of UNICEF, will create a documentary about Haiti and, before it comes out, he said he looks “to achieve a more solidarious America.” The actor has been invited by the UN with the proposal of filming a documentary that will be exhibited throughout Latin America in September.

For the past eight years, a teacher native to Kenya has been dedicated to recuperating computers and other electronic items discarded for trash. After repairing them with a team of computer experts, he sends them to students in Kenya who have no access to these technologies. Jude Ndambuki developed a new bartering system: “if you plant 100 trees I will give you a computer.”

Lack of consensus between the participating countries on procedures related to the working agenda of the UNO Conference on Disarmament continues. The calendar to start the negotiations to prohibit the production of materials essential for the production of nuclear weapons is one of the questions that have led to this impasse.

In a late but important recognition, the government of North Korea announced its intention to participate in Kim Dae-Jung´s funerals. President Kim, was the first South Korean President to actively seek reconciliation with the North. He made enormous progress in the relations with North Korea, which he visited in 2000 and held an historic meeting with its leader Kim Jong-il.

Over one hundred religious, national, community organizations and leaders and academics today called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “suspend negotiations for expanded U.S. military access or operations in Colombia,” a plan that has generated protest among Latin American countries, including Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere.

You live in a nice house in a tense neighborhood. Your neighbors haven’t been too pleased with you lately, and you have a terrible roach infestation running havoc in your house. But perhaps there’s hope. A big, strong guy lives near, and is offering help. He has big guns and says he has just the spray to get rid of those pesky roaches if you just let him crash at your place.

Remembering the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb, services in solemn tribute to war victims was conducted at the Soka Gakkai Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the memorial service in Hiroshima, the Soka Gakkai Women’s Peace Committee (WPC) held a meeting where hibakusha (bomb survivor) shared their experiences at the end of the Second War.